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Home Office

The Home Office operates at the heart of modern Government. Although one of the oldest Departments its functions cover many of the key issues currently facing us all. It is changing fast and it has seven key objectives:

· Help people feel safe in their homes
· Cut crime, especially violent, alcohol and drug-related crime
· Lead visible, responsive and accountable policing
· Support the efficient and effective delivery of justice
· Protect the public from terrorism
· Secure our borders and control migration for the benefit of our country; and
· Safeguard identity and the privileges of citizenship

The work that we do affects people’s daily lives. It is often in the media and public eye. It is regularly subjected to Parliamentary scrutiny. If you join us, you will advise senior administrators and Ministers on issues that are the focus of public attention, many of which involve sensitive legal and policy questions. The following are only some of the areas for which the Home Office is responsible:

· crime prevention
· the police
· controlled drugs
· the prevention of terrorism
· extradition
· identity cards
· firearms control
· anti-social behaviour
· immigration and asylum
· citizenship and nationality

Work of the Legal Team

As Home Office lawyers, we advise Ministers and officials on all areas of work covered by the Home Office, and also advise Ministers and officials in the Northern Ireland Office. The role of the NIO is to support the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in securing a lasting peace, based on the Good Friday Agreement, in which the rights and identities of all traditions in Northern Ireland are fully respected and safeguarded and in which a safe, stable, just, open and tolerant society can thrive and prosper.

We are involved at all stages of taking Bills through Parliament. We work closely with those responsible for the formulation of policy, we instruct Parliamentary Counsel (who draft Government Bills), we brief Ministers on the legislation and we attend Parliament during all stages of a Bill’s passage. In recent Parliamentary sessions we have worked on a number of Bills, strengthening our borders, introducing identity cards, countering terrorism and organised crime and helping the police and communities tackle crime.

We draft subordinate legislation, much of it related to implementing European Community/Union legislation from the Justice and Home Affairs Council.

We provide advice to our clients on a whole range of legal issues and in the context of a changing legal landscape, including the Human Rights Act 1998 and Data Protection Act 1998 and Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Although we are not litigators, we provide advice to our clients on domestic litigation which is of interest to Ministers because it is high profile, politically sensitive or might require a change of policy on the part of the Home Office.

We are involved in all Home Office litigation before the European Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights and we attend hearings in Luxembourg and Strasbourg. Again, we are not primarily responsible for conducting the litigation but provide advice to our clients on the policy issues arising in the litigation.

You will work closely with Ministers and officials on important and politically sensitive areas of policy. The Home Office offers a varied and challenging career for lawyers with an interest in constitutional and public law issues, criminal justice and the development of human rights law. We expect you to be flexible, and over time you will have the opportunity to work on a wide range of the areas of policy that fall to the Home Office and the Northern Ireland Office. We are committed to training and developing our staff and Home Office lawyers have been seconded to the European Court of Human Rights, the Attorney General’s Office and other postings.

The Home Office is committed to a policy of equal opportunities. Applications are welcome from candidates regardless of ethnic origin, religious belief, gender, sexual orientation, marital status, disability or any other irrelevant factor.

Benefits & Rewards

The Home Office Legal Adviser’s Branch provides an In-House Training Scheme for all their staff. All staff work in a secure open plan environment, based in the modern new headquarters building close to the Houses of Parliament.

Legal Trainee Opportunities

There are opportunities for trainee solicitors and pupil barristers to spend time working within different teams, in order to cover the varied subjects of law which the Department covers. Each year the Home Office Legal Adviser’s Branch seeks to accommodate one trainee solicitor or pupil barrister.

Trainee solicitors and pupil barristers are recruited through the GLS Legal Trainee Scheme.

Qualified Lawyer Vacancies

Vacancies for posts in this Department are advertised through the central GLS scheme. All vacancies are posted on the Civil Service Recruitment Gateway (this link will open in a new window).

Location

Home Office
2 Marsham Street
London
SW1P 4DF

Further Information

Read more about career development within the Home Office
(Adobe Acrobat pdf, 707kb).

Read what our new recruits say about us.

You can also visit the Home Office website: www.homeoffice.gov.uk.